cleopatrasdaughter:chaotischqueer:thatpettyblackgirl:LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCleopatra was of Greek he

cleopatrasdaughter:chaotischqueer:thatpettyblackgirl:LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCleopatra was of Greek heritage. There was a post around a while ago that explained that she is, in fact, European and could be played by a white person, but! I want to see her just being, and not being as sexualized as she is portrayed in history. She wasn’t attractive because of her beauty, but she was attractive because of her charm, her knowledge, and cunning-ness, she was that bad ass bitch in the house who didn’t give a shit if people liked her flesh bag or not. So I wanna see that. A woman being a woman without being objectified to the male gaze, but a woman that can be seen as a whole person in movies without being objectified.@thatpettyblackgirl /  @sweetteaandanarchy / @ijustliketoargue /  @downwithterfAn oft unknown fact is that Cleopatra VII (she would have spelled it as ‘Kleopatra VII’, being a Greek name) was indeed a mostly Macedonian Greek woman with a pinch of Persian. Her dynasty, the Ptolemies, were descended from Ptolemy, right hand of Alexander the Great, and refused to intermingle with the Egyptian population, instead inter breeding and occasionally marrying Persian and Syrian nobility (one example of a Persian / Syrian ancestress of Cleopatra VII is Cleopatra I Syra they set themselves up above Egyptians and created Alexandria, a Greek center of learning. Indeed, none of the Ptolemies spoke Egyptian, until Cleopatra herself decided learn the language to further appeal to the people, as well as present herself as Isis-Aphrodite in the tradition of Ptolemaic queens. Cleopatra identified as Greek, presented herself as a Greek woman on her official coins (which she would have approved), her three official confirmed busts, and even in her only known written hand. She only placed Greeks in high level positions, and held up the segregation laws.“Though queen of Egypt, she possessed not a drop of Egyptian blood in her veins. The last ruler of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, she was of wholly Greek upbringing, and to a very considerable extent of Greek race. She was consumed with perpetual ambition to revive the former glories of her Greek kingdom and house… Cleopatra VII would have described herself as Greek. Whatever the racial ingredients of her Macedonian ancestors, her language, like theirs (though they had spoken a dialect), was Greek, and so was her whole education and culture.”Cleopatra: A Biography - Michael Grant (her mother was most likely Cleopatra V)“Greek was her first language, and in Greek literature and culture she was educated. Although representing on Egyptian temples and some statuary in the traditional headgear and robes of the pharaohs’ wives, it was unlikely she actually dressed this way save perhaps occasionally to perform certain rites. Instead she wore the headband and robes of a Greek monarch. Cleopatra proclaimed herself the ‘New Isis’, and yet her worship of the goddess betrayed a strongly Hellenised version of the cult. She was no more Egyptian culturally or ethnically than most residents of modern day Arizona are Apaches…The Ptolemies were Macedonians, with an admixture of a little Greek and via marriage with the Seleucids a small element of Syrian blood…Cleopatra may have had black, brown, blonde, or even red hair, and her eyes could have been brown, grey, green or blue. Almost any combination of these is possible. Similarly, she may have been very light skinned or had a darker more Mediterranean complexion. Fairer skin is probably marginally more likely given her ancestry.”Antony and Cleopatra - Adrian Goldsworthy“Cleopatra VII was born to Ptolemy XII Auletes (80–57 BC, ruled 55–51 BC) and Cleopatra, both parents being Macedonian Greeks.”The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt“The Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor…While there were fair haired, fair skinned Ptolemies, Cleopatra VII was most likely not among them. It is difficult to believe that the world could have nattered on about ‘that Egyptian woman’ had she been blonde. The word ‘honey skinned’ recurs in descriptions of her relatives and would presumably have applied to hers as well, despite the inexactitudes surrounding her mother and paternal grandmother. There was certainly Persian blood in the family, but even an Egyptian mistress is a rarity among the Ptolemies. She was not dark skinned.” Cleopatra, A Life - Stacy Schiff“Cleopatra (69- 30 BC), the Greek queen of Egypt, belonged to the Ptolemaic family, the Macedonian Greeks who ruled Egypt during the Hellenistic Age.”Western civilization: ideas, Politics, and society - Marvin Perry, Margaret C Jacob, Myrna Chase, James R Jacob“Well she descends from one of the generals of Alexander the Great who are Greek Macedonians. So there is no question there that she comes from a line of Greeks. It gets a little bit more certain because they tend to…they intermarried. The 13 or 14 marriages in her dynasty, ten of them were brother-sister marriages. So there’s really no foreign blood whatsoever in this dynasty, they are truly Greek Macedonian to the hilt. There may have been a Persian princess who slipped in there somewhere, but otherwise you’re really talking about a woman who was as Greek in terms of ethnicity, in terms of culture, in terms of education, as you could be in that world.”Stacy Schiff (Pulitzer Prize winning author of “Cleopatra: A Life”)“Daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra was destined to become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and its annexation by Rome in 30 BCE. The line had been founded by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, who became King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent and had little, if any, Egyptian blood, although the Classical author Plutarch wrote that she alone of her house took the trouble to learn Egyptian and, for political reasons, styled herself as the new Isis, a title that distinguished her from the earlier Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra III, who had also claimed to be the living embodiment of the goddess Isis.”Joyce Tyldesley (author of “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt”) for Encyclopedia Britannica Academic“Cleopatra’s ancestry was essentially Macedonian Greek. She was a descendant of Ptolemy I, a general in Alexander the Great’s army and the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. The tradition that Cleopatra was of African descent has at its origin two points of uncertainty in Cleopatra’s family tree. The identities of her mother and paternal grandmother are not known with certainty, and there has been speculation that one or both of these ancestors were members of Egypt’s native population. To judge from the ancient sources, Cleopatra considered herself culturally a Ptolemy.”Cleopatra: A Sourcebook -  Prudence J. Jones“Cleopatra was, of course, of mainly Macedonian descent…She was…almost certainly dark haired and olive-skinned. Intermarriage with the Seleucid dynasty had added Persian blood to the Ptolemaic dynasty.”Cleopatra & Antony - Diana Preston“Each subsequent generation had its own Cleopatra. Most recently, for example, there has been widespread speculation that Cleopatra may have been a black woman by birth or symbolically…Since Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek, this hypothesis is highly unlikely.” Cleopatra and Rome - Diana E. E. Kleiner“Cleopatra was the seventh Egyptian queen of her name, but it is doubtful if she had any Egyptian blood in her veins. She was a Macedonian Greek. She was also the first of her line who had troubled to learn the language of the country over which she ruled…This Macedonian Greek queen of Egypt was the last person seriously to challenge the creation of a ‘Roman Mediterranean’. It was not as an ‘Egyptian’ that she challenged the Romans but as a civilized Greek.”Cleopatra - Ernle Bradford“Cleopatra probably had a clear, olive complexion..Not only did she have the blood of Geek-Macedonian in her veins, where there was a mixture of peoples from earlier centuries, but possibly also Iranian and even Syrian blood from ancestral, Ptolemaic marriages with ruling royalty in the Near East…As summed up in the Cambridge Ancient History “she was by instinct, training, and pride-of-race a Macedonian Princess.” Nefertiti & Cleopatra - Julia Samson“The colour of her hair and her complexion are unknown. There is a tradition popular in some circles that she was black, but there is not a shred of evidence to support this. The Ptolemies were Macedonians, though there was some Greek and, through marriages to Seleucids, also a little Persian blood in their recorded family line.”Caesar: Life of a Colossus - Adrian Goldsworthy“Cleopatra’s ancestors hailed from Macedon, a powerful but small nation north of Greece. Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), a relative of Cleopatra’s, had conquered much of the Mediterranean world until his death in 323 BCE Cleopatra was the last of the Macedonians to rule Egypt…Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysus (Auletes). Her mother’s identity has remained uncertain. The most likely candidate is Cleopatra VI Tryphaena, who married Auletes in 80 or 79 BCE Possibly, she was the daughter of one of Auletes’ lovers. However, none of the ancient sources, which were sometimes quite hostile toward Cleopatra, challenged her legitimate right to rule Egypt.”A to Z of Women in World History by Erika Kuhlman;  A to Z of Ancient Greek and Roman Women, Revised Edition by  Benjamin Lightman & Marjorie Lightman (Infobase Academic)“ Indeed, some writers have gone so far as to claim that Cleopatra was black. In the case of Cleopatra, we are reasonably certain that she had light skin because she is directly descended from generations of Greek Ptolemies.”Egyptian Mummies: Unravelling the Secrets of an Ancient Art - Bob BrierSince her stated goal, which is shared by her editors, is to redress past oppression and to help establish a new social justice, she presents a portrait of Cleopatra as a woman (rather than as a Hellenistic despotic ruler), as a black (rather than a Macedonian Greek), and as a victim (rather than a loser in a closely matched struggle for power). It is not that there is no factual data to support some of these hypotheses; it is unquestionably true that we do not know the precise identity of Cleopatra’s paternal grandmother, the mistress of Ptolemy IX. The problem lies in how the evidence is used. Surely it is misleading to suggest that the unique non-Greek mistress Didyme provides evidence of a common practice, or that Cleopatra was almost completely Egyptian. Possibility is not the same thing as probability. But people who want Cleopatra to be black tend to downplay the importance of warranted evidence in constructing their arguments. That is, in place of known historical fact, these writers prefer to substitute acceptable claims, simply because they are approved by their particular audiences.Not Out of Africa - Mary Lefkowitz (The whole debate relying on falsified information in 19th century book)“In Egypt the Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies was the successor to the native Pharaohs, exploiting through a highly organized bureaucracy the great natural resources of the Nile Valley.”The Civilization of Rome - Donald R. Dudley“The Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt were primarily seen by their contemporaries as Greek in nature throughout their reign. In fact, they stressed this feature through their connection with Alexander the Great, even going so far as to have Alexander’s preserved body sent to Alexandria, where it was made a cult object. Although the Ptolemies did embrace aspects of Egyptian culture, and incorporated them into their rule, they were used for various purposes which have more in common with propaganda than with a sincere attempt at cultural integration. The most obvious cases of this merging of Greek and Egyptian cultures are the practice of dynastic incest throughout their rule, the portrayal of Ptolemaic kings in an Egyptian manner, the association of Ptolemaic rulers with Egyptian Pharaohs and with both Greek and Egyptian gods, and the frequent deification of individual rulers after their deaths. Although aspects of the Ptolemaic dynasty were accepted in Greece, the later Romans used the same aspects to vilify the Ptolemaic rulers and more closely associate them with a more barbaric, foreign, and eastern Egypt. The Ptolemaic rulers ultimately saw themselves as Greeks ruling over a land populated with Egyptian “others,” appropriating some elements of this other culture to their own in ways that best suited their needs.”Appropriation and Approximation: Tensions Between “Greekness” and “Otherness” in the Ptolemaic Dynasty -  Marybeth Osowski“The Alexandrines considered themselves Greeks and Macedonians. And, as a matter of fact, it does not seem likely that there was any considerable infusion of native Egyptian blood in the Alexandrines. At Naucratis marriage between a citizen and an Egyptian woman was illegal; probably this was also so at Alexandria and at Ptolemais.” The House of Ptolemy - E. R. Bevan “Life in Alexandria was segregated. There was a racist edge to the Greek mentality despite its stated universalism; ethnic groups sought out the company of their own nations. The Egyptians were on the west side, the Jews were on the east side, and the Greeks lived in the middle where all the great public buildings were.”A Provocative People: A Secular History of the Jews - Sherwin T. Wine -- source link

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